Ishpor Enfields, and painted finish...?

Hello...this my first post, and is more of a question. I recently acquired a 7.62 Ishpor, and have broken it down for cleaning. I had an Enfield, long ago, and do not recall the finish. The Ishpor is painted...black (?). Were Enfields also painted, as opposed to being blued? If so, when did painting begin, or were they always blued?
I will repaint the worn areas, though if acquiring another, I may strip it and blue it. Being that it is from the 60s, and not WWII, altering the finish on a second does notseem such a crime.
Thanks for the time!

Mpro7 will soften the paint up nicely if you want to remove it

They were blued or parkerized and then painted. I don't know for sure about parkerizing as I've not been in a UK factory...but they weren't JUST painted. Yes it can be stripped but the best way is a glass beading and then repark and repaint.

The Ishapore paint is different than UK "stoving"

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Originally Posted by Fushigi Ojisan

The Ishapore paint is different

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I believe you. The UK uses Suncorite and India may just use stove paint.

My Ishapore was a dilemma. It was an all-matching rifle from 1966 that had been coated with with an unknown black substance. Most of that substance was peeling off and leaving bare metal (see attached photos). I had two options. I could preserve the collector value (maybe $250??), do nothing, and fight the rust and preservation battle. The second option was to refurbish it and bring it back to its original condition prior to being coated with whatever they used on it. I went with option #2. The way I figured it, I would have a Lee Enfield SMLE rifle that would last forever along with the fact that it was chambered in .308 which would always be available (and cheaper than .303). My only concern was what I would find under all of that black colored coating?

The answer to that was a beautiful Lee Enfield rifle. The wood was stripped using Citristrip and refinished using raw linseed oil as per the original factory finish. There was no sanding or removal of dents since I wanted the rifle to retain some of its character. The black coating was stripped off with MPro7 (as mentioned above) prior to having it bead blasted (the bead blaster wouldn't take it until I had the coating taken off since he didn't want it in his media). Once it was bead blasted, I took it to a local gunsmith who blued the metal parts. Final assembly took about a couple of hours. All in all, I have about $700 into a $300 rifle, but she is a beauty. It never fails to turn heads when it is taken out of it's case at the range. When I presented it to it's original owner, he thought it was a different gun and didn't even recognize it as originally being his.

I hope that helps to give you some perspective as to how you approach your Ishapore project. Good luck!

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Thanks! I will give that a try. Bluing would look much better. A question, though...is bead blasting needed, or is it essential to getting the best finish for the bluing to adhere?

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Originally Posted by SOT(D)

is bead blasting needed

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Glass bead blasting will remove every rust pit and clean stamps and remove everything. Except it won't remove surface...so when you blue, it's matt finish but perfect. Otherwise with hand polish you may lose detail or leave some old finish at join of barrel/barrel ring for instance.

The bead blasting prepped the metal on my rifle perfectly. Several of the small parts on the safety mechanism actually came out with a purplish tinge to them. All of the small parts now match the receiver and barrel parts. If you pre-strip the black coating, the bead blasting should cost less.

Bluing is rust, it’s harder to rust a mirror polished surface than a rough one.

Glass bead blast is the perfect metal prep for military firearms for bluing or parkerizing.

Double bonus: it’s easier and faster!

A scan of an article taken from a pre-WW1 article on the manufacture of Lee Enfield barrels may be of interest '

"Browning of Barrels"

(or Blueing by another name)

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Originally Posted by Singer B

Several of the small parts on the safety mechanism actually came out with a purplish tinge

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Because of the different content of the parts. We tried a stronger solution of bluing salts to give it a black finish, kind of a trial and error. Also you can use an oxynate 84 solution as for stainless and it will give them black but you may need to pickle them in Muriatic acid first to clean the metal pores.

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Originally Posted by browningautorifle

Because of the different content of the parts. We tried a stronger solution of bluing salts to give it a black finish, kind of a trial and error. Also you can use an oxynate 84 solution as for stainless and it will give them black but you may need to pickle them in Muriatic acid first to clean the metal pores.

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Thanks but I like them just the way they are. It adds some character to it. Actually went and shot it yesterday with someone who had never experienced a gun like it. He had a lot of fun with it.

While the rifle is apart check the "draws". They turn to mush from all the oil migrating down when rifle is sitting in the rack. Use JB Weld to repair.

Glass beads need to be used with caution: too high a pressure or too new beads can stipple a surface more than is desirable. The effect is like a microscopic shot blast and when the beads are new and intact "balls", they can "peen" a surface much more than when they are well broken up into tiny jagged fragments, but air pressure is more important in this than the age of the beads.

A fresh coat of parkerizing is a perfect base for paint, especially if the crystalline structure is good - meaning that the chemistry of the bath has been maintained where it should be. Blotchy, inconsistent or thin finishes with inadequate crystal formation are the result if not maintained.